


a war between the vanities

by yesterdaychild



Series: Happy Eruri Week! [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Descriptions of gore, Family, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterdaychild/pseuds/yesterdaychild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin decides to go home to see his family, but realises there are better things worth fighting for.</p><p>Written for Day Three of Eruri Week. Prompt: Home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a war between the vanities

**Author's Note:**

> Title from OneRepublic's 'Come Home'.
> 
> Originally posted on tumblr: http://erwindanchou.tumblr.com/post/70838847833/eruri-week-day-three-a-war-between-the-vanities
> 
> If you like it please leave a comment!

On one of their rare days off, Erwin decided to go home.

Levi stood in the doorway of Erwin’s office, jacket slung over his shoulders in typical fashion. “You must have nothing to do if you’re going home instead of doing paperwork,” he said sardonically.

Erwin was pushing sheafs of paper together, writing neat reminders to himself for his return into two days. He would ride for the interior of Wall Sina that day, stay two nights, and be back by noon the day after. In the meantime, Levi knew, Erwin didn’t trust anybody else to do his paperwork for him.

Erwin’s ramrod straight posture even at leisure and his ease with a pen belied his upbringing. Levi wasn’t clear on the details - Erwin was understandably reticent on the topic - but he had heard that Erwin’s early days in the military had not been easy. “A white horse,” the murmurs had been, with all the attendant insinuations of special treatment and protection.

Levi had snorted. He didn't think his detractors had realised that if Erwin was a white horse, that made all the rest of them fucking donkeys.

Erwin said distractedly, “I haven’t been home in a while. Can’t let the last time my parents see me be just a blood-stained cloak and a bolo tie, can I?”

"Maybe I should go with you," Levi said idly, "After all, that cloak and bolo tie will be in my arms, won’t they?"

They’d come to that agreement not long ago, that should either fall with the other surviving, they would serve out the last rites for each other. For Erwin, this meant that his remains would be returned to his parents. Levi could care less about what happened to his pathetic, good for nothing body and the life it had contained, but Erwin was to take his material possessions and distribute it to the old members of his gang, and his last act of eternal sworn brotherhood to them.

Needless to say, between Erwin’s self-righteous inner-wall family and Levi’s old gangmembers who still saw him as a traitor, neither of them were looking forward to it.

Erwin bent to press a kiss to Levi’s cheek before they left the room together. “If you knew my parents, you wouldn’t suggest meeting them so idly,” he said. “Though if I’m not back when I’m supposed to be, come get me,” he added, and Levi couldn’t really tell if he was joking or not.

*

Erwin rode up unaccompanied to the Smith manor. He was dressed immaculately in his riding clothes, but not his military issued uniform - he was courting derision and snide remarks if he did so. Instead, he was in pressed brown slacks, a blue cloak embroidered with gold filigree - the colours of the Smith coat of arms. He hoped that would pacify his mother somewhat.

The door opened as he rode up to it. He had sent word of his return home, and it seemed that the family had prepared for his return. He was, he supposed, still the eldest son of the richest family in Sina.

He unhorsed, and greeted the butler who awaited him. “Wolfgang,” he said. “You’re looking well.”

"As are you, Master Erwin," the butler inclined his head, reaching out for his cloak. "May I?"

Erwin unfastened it, and handed it to Wolfgang. “Please take my bags in, and give the horse a good rub down. She’s ridden hard.”

Wolfgang bowed, and Erwin entered.

He went to his room, washed, changed into some of his old clothes - he noticed how they seemed to hang a little loosely on him - and went to see his mother.

She was, as usual, entertaining. He entered her sitting room, and she looked up from the two women who sat on the couch adjacent to hers.

"Ah, right on cue," she said, smiling winningly at her son. "Come in, Erwin, we were expecting you."

Only years of enduring military politics and leading men helped him mask the suspicion and irritation he felt. He moved over to his mother and bent to kiss her cheek. “Mother,” he greeted, and she smiled the smile she reserved for guests and friends.

Erwin hated that smile, hated the way it didn’t reach her eyes, hated how she used it with him but not his father or his brother. Nothing - not his father’s cold, distant anger or his brother’s faux concern - made him stay away more than the memory of that smile.

"This is Lady Miller and her daughter Elizabeth," his mother said. "They came to tea and I thought they’d stay for dinner."

 _You mean you invited them specially for my return_ , Erwin thought to himself, but he held his tongue and smoothed his features and nodded a greeting at the strangers.

Elizabeth looked pleasant enough, but upon closer scrutiny she also looked exceptionally young. She was, perhaps, barely older than some of the recruits who entered the Survey Corps, though of course as a daughter of the powerful Miller family that was never a decision she ever had to make, should she choose not to. Erwin looked impassively at her, who twisted her hands in her lap and looked shyly in return.

Provincial sitting-room politics, as usual, paled against the troubles he faced every day in the military as tiresome and petty. He found himself wishing that he had brought a stack of those papers that were currently on his desk on his office; found himself thinking over documents that had to be presented and signed and approved; arguments to construct for the allocation of more money and resources to the Survey Corps; formations, strategy, and the ever present issue of cost and benefit… he even allowed himself the luxury of feeling guilty for letting his mind return all those miles back to the barracks, when he had travelled so far ostensibly just to return home.

His thoughts, however, were interrupted by Lady Miller asking him a question. “And what do you do, Erwin?” She asked. Lady Smith said, “Ah, Erwin is part of the military.”

"Oh, a member of the military police! You must know my cousin, then -"

Erwin was surprised by the casual assumption, but he maintained his composure. He smiled, and saw his mother cast a warning look at him, but spoke anyway. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, my lady. I’m the Commander of the Survey Corps.”

Lady Miller arched one fine eyebrow, and cast a look at Lady Smith, who in turn was pursing her lips at Erwin.

"That changes our discussion significantly, Emma," Lady Miller said. "I had no idea he was in such a high risk occupation."

"I’m sure as Commander he hardly ever meets any danger. Isn’t that right, Erwin?"

Erwin’s mind flashed to the circumstances of the week before; the 52nd expedition, the sudden increase in Aberrants, the whinny and the sudden jerk of his horse as an Aberrant came out of nowhere and leapt toward them. Riding between its legs, slashing at its Archilles tendons, as Levi flew into the air and deftly sliced at its neck -

"No, Mother," he said, and Levi would have recognised the sarcasm lacing his tongue, "No danger at all."

*

Dinner was more of a trial than the sitting room had been.

Ernest and Father were present, with the coolest of greetings. Ernest had feigned an effusive welcome to his ‘travelling brother’, which Erwin had returned with a plastic smile of his own. Lady Smith had managed to pacify Lady Miller into staying for dinner, and Erwin began to be certain that the two women were attempting to push him and the Miller girl into marriage.

They took their seats, and Ernest began to speak about his work to entertain the guests - the season’s stock, which quarter the greatest sales were in, how to tell a good horse from a real thoroughbred - it was all very well and very much like growing up at his father’s table that Erwin felt no need to participate. He focussed instead on his steak, a rare and bloody affair that he had lost the taste for after years of military canteens, and too, too much blood.

Until, of course, his father addressed him directly.

"And how about you, Erwin? How has your quest for martyrdom gone?"

Erwin placidly cut into his steak, willing the slice in his father’s words to lend and edge to his knife instead. “Well, Father. I suppose you would know something of it, since you supply most of our horses.”

His father’s jaw hardened. “Then it seems very much like a lost cause to me.”

"You’re free to have that opinion, Father," Erwin maintained, never lifting his eyes to meet his father’s gaze.

It was needling his father, he could tell - Ernest broke in with his usual bluster, “Well, you should consider coming to help me with the business, brother - after all, it’s also a good time to settle down and live a little more responsibly -“

Erwin lifted his gaze at that. “Settle down,” he echoed. “That’s not possible, my brother, you know my views on that. It would hardly be responsible for me to leave a young lady behind should I meet my end in an untimely fashion.”

"Well," Ernest blustered on, "She’d be well taken care of, wouldn’t she, with your military pension, and with a child -"

Erwin’s instincts were tingling the way they did when something was very wrong. His mother was pinning Ernest with a disapproving stare. He looked at Elizabeth, who didn’t meet his gaze; Lady Miller, who met his with a strange sort of hunger; took in the faded colours of their dresses and where they had been patched discreetly at seams and hems.

"I’m afraid," he said quietly, "That I’m not cattle to be milked, neither for money nor for a son."

"That wouldn’t appear to be the case, from the way you’re throwing your life away," his father said angrily.

Erwin finally met his gaze at that. He looked around the table. He put his knife and fork down.

"Shall I tell you how a Titan eats?" he asked in a murmur. Without waiting for a response, he continued. "We have here this piece of meat. Oh, what a tasty, succulent piece of meat, except it looks back with fear and a whimper."

The table had gone absolutely still, and he could see the servants straining to listen from their positions by the walls. Erwin lifted a hand, let it fall ominously slowly toward the meat on his plate. He picked up a piece, narrating as he went.

"A human, trembling with terror. The Titan picks it up, and the human squirms, trying to wrestle itself free. Some cry, calling for their mothers. Other shout, cursing Titans, their existence, and promising that humanity will have its revenge. All of them, even as they head to their inevitable end, even as they stare the gaping maw of their demise in the face, cannot believe that this is it. This is what they have lived their too-short lives for - a black, wet, silent hole taller and wider than they are, and the sounds of screaming all around."

Erwin put the piece of meat in his mouth, and chewed. His jaw worked once, twice, before a swallow. His hand was covered with steak juice, a stickiness that left him feeling like a monster, but he still felt pity when he realised Elizabeth was about to cry. He twisted his hands in his napkin to wipe them clean, wiped his mouth, and dropped the napkin back on his plate, where it lay soaking up the pink juices of the steak.

He stood.

"The work I’m doing out there keeps you at this table than in the pit of a Titan’s stomach," he said softly, "But I see now I should find a better reason to fight.

"Now if you’ll excuse me," he said inclining his head. He didn’t wait for approval or affirmation before leaving - after all, he had flouted too many rules of etiquette this evening for a token one to really matter.

He stopped by his room to change and collect his still-unpacked bags before leaving through the stables. He saddled his horse, promised her a gentle ride home, but his attention was suddenly drawn by the sound gravel crunching under a boot.

He stiffened, ready to fight, but the person said, “I knew you wouldn’t stay for long.”

Erwin smiled. Levi stepped into the lantern light, amusement in his grey eyes.

"I knew I could always count on you to save me," Erwin said, straightening up again and swinging his leg up over his horse.

Levi cocked his head at the horse he was leading. “Think your father can spare a good horse or two? I wore mine out on the way.”

Erwin laughed. Levi had already saddled and readied one of his father’s best thoroughbreds, a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Let’s go," Erwin said, but he already felt at home.


End file.
